Main menu

best horror movies

Pages

After a good, long run, we have decided to close our forums in an effort to refocus attention to other sections of the site. Fortunately for you all, we're living in a time where discussion of a favorite topic now has a lot of homes. So we encourage you all to bring your ravenous love for discussion to Chuck's official Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. And, as always, you can still post comments on all News updates. Thank you for your loyalty and passion over the years. These changes will happen June 1.

5.cabin in the woods: not really a spoof, parody, or homage, it's just self aware, fun, and able to more completely explore the teenage slasher genre.

4.the exorcist: genuinely fucking scary for the 70's and an inadvertent genre starter.

3.night of the living dead: creating a genre, playing with race, and using documentary style newsreels before anyone else was cool as shit.

2.alien/the thing: being stranded with a monster's probably one of the most primal fears, and seeing your tribe picked off one by one's a nice striptease.

1.the shining: when people have a problem with horror flicks, i think they really have more of a problem with tone than violence. the shining's all tone. one hypnotic chord throughout the whole thing, we are jack, the unwitting villain, who must masochistically explore the darkness and sadistically expose our loved ones to it like a virus.

Horror movies never scare me outside of startling moments. I just can't take them seriously. 28 Days Later scared me, i loved the Scream movies, Cabin in the Woods was great, The Ring was kind of scary, Blair Witch was scary when i first saw it, that's all i can think of. I like the gore though. The Feast movies were pretty awesome too.

I don't fucking know. Horror is so poorly done these days and old ones don't scare me. It's a genre I love that's nearly impossible to find a good example of.

(we all have to gear up for Halloween, so this might get us going)
The Exorcist was fun. i love to see Ellen Burstyn walk in the leaves. we watch it every fall and eat split soup at that yearly viewing as well. GROSS!
:P

did y'all like the added scenes?

we watch The Shining like clockwork every winter. last year my son and i were in hysterics when Shelley D swings the bat at Jack on the staircase. i really do find the scene with the masked couple in the bedroom spooky; it's the way they look at Shelley.

i'll try to think of some horrors i liked. too tired to count that high now.

i can say Session 9 was really creepy to me. maybe just because i had a really creepy bf at the time though.
here's a silly from it:

The fact that me and my grandmother were not phased by this movie amazes me. Stupid shit scares her all the time and well I startle easily but this movie bored the hell out of us. Yeah, I watched this with my grandma, in the theater, I was 14.

I love horror. But there are so many genres that I can't just do like a top 5 list I don't think.

But I can just mention favorites in random order:

Nightmare on Elm Street - all of them actually (though the first one is my favorite). This was probably one of the first movies that ever really scared me. I loved Halloween and Friday the 13th, but they didn't have me afraid to go to sleep.

The Shining - another one that scared me because it's hard to tell what is real. Is isolation fucking with them. What's in Danny's head? What's in Jack's head? Piecing it together, for me, is part of the movie. It takes it from a spectator sport to needing you to participate on some level. And I love Kubrick.

The Others - while not horror, it's a good mind fuck. It's kind of like what M. Knight tries to do in his movies, but done right. Although I guess I can mention The Sixth Sense here (which is a great movie).

All of The Saw movies. Not sure I have much to say about them other than I really enjoy them.

The Ring - this is one of the few movies that really creeped me out. Now movies like this are pretty popular. But this was the first movie in the States to be done with the Asian horror feel. And it really scared me.

Cabin in the Woods - This is one of my favorite movies - period. I love this movie and watch it all of the time. I love how it makes fun of itself, and it's not too serious. Yet it has this crazy ending that just comes out of left field. None of my friends get it though.

Pyscho - This is another one that is just one of my all time favorite movies. Not sure if it's my favorite Hitchcock, that might be Vertigo. But this movie is just great and so ahead of its time.

Poltergeist - After Nightmare on Elm Street, I think this was the next movie to ever really scare me as a kid. I loved it so much, but it also kept me up at night. I used to have to sleep under the covers.

The Scream movies - While they don't scare me so much, I do really enjoy them. I think they are modern slasher movies, not taking themselves too seriously. But not crossing the line to where the viewer stops taking them seriously too. Really well done, IMO.

The Exorcist - I guess there's a reason it's mentioned so much.

Honorable mentions (maybe I'll come back and write something about some of these):

Jaws
Alien
Candy Man
Carrie
Pet Semetary
The Omen
Children of the Corn
The Changeling
Fire in the Sky
The Amityville Horror
Session 9
The Descent
Rec / Quaranteen

I remember when I was younger, a lot of people shit on The Ring as being kind of lame, or not that scary. I watched it in a dark basement, and it creeped me the hell out. I've heard that the original JApanese version is better, though, and so I have it on my computer. I'm afraid to watch it, though, hahaha.

I really must get hold of the book it's based on. The writer (Clive Barker) is actually from Liverpool and based the story on the city, I believe. It makes sense because Liverpool has kind of a dark past in terms of the slave trade. We did a table top sale in the place where Caprini Green (the housing project) was based and it was freaky as fug. A really isolated old warehouse by the docks.

I remember when I was younger, a lot of people shit on The Ring as being kind of lame, or not that scary. I watched it in a dark basement, and it creeped me the hell out. I've heard that the original JApanese version is better, though, and so I have it on my computer. I'm afraid to watch it, though, hahaha.

That is one of my favorites and me and my friend saw it, sitting in the first row which was insane. We also watched it in a mostly empty church with all the lights out. That was pretty creepy.

There was this great mini-series on BBC Four two years ago called A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss. They referenced loads of amazing looking 20th Century European films that looked great. You're welcome :):

I would also recommend that you guys check out the original Ring film. It is infinitely scarier than the American version (which to be honest I found quite flat). I must watch it again some time.

I've just noticed we've got Insidious (one of my boyfriend's christmas presents from his mother, weirdly) on our DVD shelf. I'm going to watch it this weekend. I see that it's by the makers of Paranormal Activity, so I don't exactly have high hopes.

Nah it's brilliant Harriet, it's not like found footage stuff, you wouldn't guess it was the same person. It's just so imaginative. Even if you don't end up liking it much I'd be surprised if you said it was just run of the mill. I think it's quite brilliant. I like the style, the make up and effects were really refreshing.

I liked the first, I didn't enjoy the second, I LOVED the third and the fourth was okay, Rhys really liked the fourth.
But I am tired of the found footage thing. It's overdone and I really appreciate good quality horror that tries new things. Insidious pays a lot homage to old things too though and I love that. The soundtrack and stuff. I just love James Wan, I wish him and Ti West were my friends.

I think the reason a lot of people didn't like Paranormal Activity the first time around was that it was marketed as if it was "real footage" and people took them totally seriously, so they were all "OMG, it's so FAKE!"

But if you go into it realizing that it's fake, just like all other horror movies, it's really quite spooky. One scene really freaked me out, but I don't want to spoil it.

I would also recommend that you guys check out the original Ring film. It is infinitely scarier than the American version (which to be honest I found quite flat). I must watch it again some time.

I have a box set that has all 4 of the Asian movies. One of them is so terrible. I think it's the 3rd one. I think it was only supposed to be a trilogy, but they had to make up for the awfulness. But, I agree, that first one is so good.

Let The Right One In
Haute Tension
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
Audition
Suspiria
The House Of The Devil
Cabin Fever
The Ruins
Hostel
Saw
Martyrs
House of 1,000 Corpses
Signs
Eden Lake
The Mist
The Snowtown Murders
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
The Strangers
Trick R Treat
The Last House on the Left (both have their merits)
House of Wax
The People Under the Stairs
The Blair Witch Project
Se7en

Fuck it this list is going to go on forever and I'm not even into most of the 90's yet.

I love the movie Martyrs. I think you might have been the person that got me to watch it the first time. But yeah, it accomplishes what it was meant to accomplish.

what did you or Skydoll think about the significance of the ending?

was no one else impressed with Taxidermia? it isn't full of frights-like, but still such a special show in its own way. the absolute ending I had some small reservations about though (only the last 2 mins).

Singapore Sling as well. not scary like a Halloween or Suspiria, but it does qualify as horrorful.

Pages

Important Disclaimer: Although this is Chuck Palahniuk’s official website, we are in essence, more an official ‘fansite.’ Chuck Palahniuk himself does not own nor run this website. Nor did he create it. It was started by Dennis Widmyer, who is the webmaster and editor of most of the content. Chuck Palahniuk himself should not be held accountable nor liable for any of the content posted on this website. The opinions expressed in the news updates, content pages and message boards are not the opinions of Chuck Palahniuk nor his publishers. If you are trying to contact Chuck Palahniuk, sending emails to this website will not get you there. You should instead, take the more professional route of contacting his publicist at Doubleday.